A non-governmental organisation, Christian Fellowship and Care Foundation in collaboration with the Centre for People Across Boarders and with support from End Water Poverty, has urged Nigerians to use water and sanitation as instrument for electoral votes in the forthcoming 2023 general elections.
Executive Director of the Care Foundation, Evang Albert Ezeigwe at a one day CSOs/media workshop in Owerri, Imo state with the theme; “Claim Your Water Rights Naija”, said it was aimed at mobilising citizens to demand for the change they desired with votes.
According to him, “The campaign is focused on advocacy and campaigning for water and sanitation to various levels of stakeholders in Nigeria during the forthcoming general elections.
“As part of the campaign, Christian Fellowship and Care Foundation and Centre for People Across Boarders, in a bid to make water a key electoral issue carried out citizens town hall meetings which were geared towards educating and empowering the citizens to use the ballot to demand for their human rights to water and sanitation. “
“This town hall meeting involved multi-stakeholders’ consultations and needs based assessment and knowledge building on the responsibility of government to fulfil it’s obligations and the people’s rights to water and the power people have to challenge governnent when the rights are violated through the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).”
Evang Ezeigwe further said the forthcoming elections presents an opportunity to bring water and sanitation issues to the front burner of everyone’s mind and that it is the right time to educate the electorate to vote only candidates with clear plans to increase access to water and sanitation and other developmental challenges in their communities, as well as to educate and mobilize other voters to vote for WASH and development.
In his remark, Director of Research, Centre for People Across Boarders, Dr Johnson Ndubuisi said the meeting was aimed at engaging the media and bloggers to understand why water should be at the centre of elections.
